How to Change Washington DC

January 30, 2012

Register to vote. Only 60% of us have. And only 42% voted in 2010. That means there are almost as many unregistered Americans as there are voters! Can you imagine what would happen if, in an election year, there were suddenly twice as many potential voters? Can you imagine candidates scrambling to secure votes from a populace they barely knew existed and whose agenda was unclear?

The unregistered vote could sway elections. The unregistered could write in their own candidates and overwhelm our fractured party system. And all it would take is a little unity.

It’s the classic problem of throwing off a grading curve. As long as everyone does equally poorly on a test, their grades will be similar – and, for the most part, ‘above average’. But if one person over-achieves on the test, then everyone else’s grades suffer. So no one ever tries to beat a curve, because they don’t trust every person in their class to adhere to the formula.

Similarly have we become jaded with the power of voting. What difference will it make, we ask, when presented with equally poor options? When it’s probably fixed anyway? How could my one vote change anything? Well, 58% of Americans feel the same way.

One person can’t do everything, but we can all do something. I don’t care which party you vote for or whose name you write onto the ballot. I don’t care if you’re too busy to actually vote. But register!

It’s been said that we could have a revolution tomorrow if all the fast food and department store and other service employees simply refused to go to work. I don’t think we even need to go that far. I think we could do it fairly and openly and through the due process of law. But it would take all of us.